


Shall We Dance?

by lillianmmalter



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Dancing, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 23:43:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11747625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lillianmmalter/pseuds/lillianmmalter
Summary: Peggy has always loved dancing.





	Shall We Dance?

**Author's Note:**

> Now with [German translation](https://www.fanfiktion.de/s/5b1424e7000610be27b36b98/1/Tanz-mit-mir) by [Nenaisu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nenaisu/pseuds/Nenaisu)/[Yamuna](https://www.fanfiktion.de/u/Yamuna)!

Peggy’s parents waltzed around the sitting room when she was a child. She would spy on them from the hall, her mother relaxed enough to float across the floor, her father for once intent on the person right in front of him instead of distracted by something else. The way they moved was like something from a fairy story, the old-fashioned music from the gramophone setting the scene as only music could. The way they danced was elegant, beautiful. It was nothing like the wild gyrations her older cousins did.

Peggy yearned to be held in someone’s arms like that one day. She twirled around her room with her dolls for partners, her feet exaggerating the steps.

One two three.

One two three.

One two three.

Michael teasing her for it didn’t stop her. Dancing seemed the height of romance, and when she got old enough for such things she wanted to know how to do it well.

***

When she was thirteen, Peggy and a group of her school friends snuck out of class to go to the cinema. There, on a fifty foot screen in all their black and white glamour, she saw Fred and Ginger spin around a dancefloor for the first time.

Her heart raced and her eyes widened. Peggy longed to wear a dress like Ginger Rogers’, something long and flowing and elegant that would swish around her ankles and flare attractively when her partner spun her around.

She went home that night and practiced her spins, bumping into her bed and her desk and the wall until she was dizzy. Then she got up to do it again. The next day, she asked Eunice, who did ballet, how to spin properly, and Eunice showed her.

Peggy’s head whipped around with each rotation, her eyes trying and trying and trying to spot the picture on the wall each time she spun so she wouldn’t get dizzy and fall over.

For weeks she wound up in a dazed heap on the floor, bruised hips, bruised knees, bruised pride, until finally she got it.

And she spun.

***

She was recruited to Bletchley Park, where she spent her days hunched over encoded messages, racing the clock to find something that would be of use to the boys on the front, to her brother fighting somewhere behind enemy lines.

At night, she and the girls went dancing.

Soldiers and sailors, airmen and locals flung her around the dancefloor, all of them desperate for a little fun, a little taste of something normal.

It wasn’t the slow, graceful sweep of a waltz, wasn’t even Fred and Ginger’s energetic combinations, but at least she was dancing.

Peggy met Fred on the dancefloor during a slow song, and then again in the office a week later, and her heart skipped a beat and said _maybe_.

_Maybe._

But the longer they dated, the less frequently they went out to dance, until they were engaged and then they weren’t and then they no longer danced at all.

***

While Peggy trained for the SOE, there was no time for dancing, but her heart yearned for it.

***

Two years later and across the ocean, Peggy once again had time for dancing, this time in the bright, buzzing lights of New York City. But once again it was with soldiers and sailors, airmen and locals who threw her around the dancefloor and sometimes tried to get fresh.

It was a fun game, a nice distraction, but none of them touched her heart.

And then…

_“I figured I’d wait.”_

_“For what?”_

_“The right partner.”_

And…

_“We’ll have the band play somethin’ slow. I’d hate to step on your–”_

And there was no more dancing.

***

Still, old habits were hard to break, and after the war Peggy often found herself swaying to the radio when she was home ironing the laundry, dusting, making her own cup of tea. It wasn’t a conscious thing, and at first she tried to stop, but music meant movement, and it wasn’t as though anyone was going to see her, so when she did those domestic things that allowed life to go on, she indulged her old habits and swayed.

Her hips rocked gently from side to side, her feet stepped and shuffled in place. Her heart - tired, aching thing that it was - gave an extra happy beat just from hearing and moving to the music again.

And so it was that months after she and Daniel began dating, Peggy didn’t even think about swaying to the music on the radio when she started washing-up at his house one night after dinner, she just did it, stocking feet and all.

She caught him watching her after a few minutes when she noticed he’d stopped drying the clean plates.

“Daniel?”

He was smiling, eyes bright and only a little self conscious as he tossed the tea towel onto the counter and held out his hand.

“May I have the honor of this dance?”

Peggy’s heart leapt in her chest and started doing a very complicated tango.

She didn’t do this anymore, couldn’t do this anymore, but…

But this was Daniel.

And so, with trembling breath, she peeled the too big rubber gloves off her hands and laid them over the edge of the sink.

And she took his hand.

And he pulled her to him.

And she was in his arms.

And they were dancing.

It wasn’t quite like any of the dancing she’d done in her youth, all twirls and fancy steps and excitement. It was slower, calmer, more of a side to side shuffle than anything else, but Peggy felt like she was floating.

“I’m not much of a dancer anymore,” Daniel apologized, “but this I can do.”

Peggy laid her head on his chest and smiled. His heart was beating in time with hers. A little giddy, a little awkward, but sure and steady and true.

It wasn’t quite what she used to imagine wanting when she was growing up, but it was hers. Finally, it was hers.

“It’s enough,” she said. “It’s more than enough.”

And they danced.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was very vaguely inspired by [this](http://lillianmmalter.tumblr.com/post/159189341965/laylainalaska-freelancerkiwi) post over on Tumblr. 
> 
> The Fred and Ginger movie Peggy goes to see is not "Shall We Dance", but "The Gay Divorcee" which came out in 1934 and was their first headliner together. Personally, I think "Shall We Dance" is both the better movie and the better title. Though who else is increasingly creeped the fuck out by every single character Fred Astaire played? I totally watch them for Ginger now. Also the dancing.


End file.
